Have you seen the article going around, with the headline "Will some Democrats refuse to rally behind their nominee?"

It's manipulative spin messing with your head. Here's why.

To start with, understand that we don't have a true democracy here. Voters aren't given all the pertinent candidate information in a straightforward, serious way- then our decisions would truly be our own, and not subject to ongoing manipulation. Instead, the mainstream media largely controls most American's opinions, shaping and tweaking a more convenient reality of whatever their owners and CEO's decide is most profitable via ratings, polls, focus groups, sponsors, or connections. It's an ongoing staged soap opera that usually only reflects a skewed percentage of actual reality; but when most TV watchers share in the portrayed delusion, it's convincing enough so most don't consider those behind the scenes whose entire job it is to introduce bias, maintain ignorance, or use a million subtle, effective tricks to effectively adjust your world view. Like assumptive leading headlines, restricted airtime, or continually asking unprofessional 'gotcha' questions where any response can be quoted out of context for cheap sensationalist spin pieces.

In a time of gross wealth inequality and widespread poverty, competing campaigns and networks spend millions of dollars spreading disinformation and creating drama for distraction or perceived situational advantage. To make matters worse, in the past few years, more and more laws have been added or repealed which open up presidential candidates to millions in corporate, or even third-world foreign financing for their campaigns. Studies already show an undeniably linked correlation between approved corporate-serving legislation and money invested in governmental lobbying by those same corporations. Pair that with a jarring complete disparity between populace-supported issues and their representation in law. This is why minimum wage is below the poverty level, and why you as an individual pay more in yearly taxes than CBS Corp., General Motors and General Electric combined; business (thus money) buys a bigger voice, which buys power, which keeps both out of our hands. Bottom line, whether we realize it throughout our daily lives or not, those who can pay the most make the rules over what we can achieve in life, how we live, what we think, and even what we believe as truth. Lying and deciet has become not just accepted, but expected, even depressingly normalized and considered adventageously essential to those who are otherwise legitimately unpopular. Mainstream media viewpoints (narratives) can routinely be traced back as reflections of who owns, backs, or works for the source corporation. Just follow the money. True unbiased, informative news with journalistic integrity has been discarded for more subversively useful, sensationalized, more profitable corporate 'infotainment'.

These tricks have been so overused they're frankly beginning to become obvious, especially by those looking for it, those who have a way of checking sources, and those who trust their own research over a random talking head's scripted agenda. Enter the youth; they are a generation of natural skeptics, raised in rampant runaway capitalist consumerism and so in self-preservation are well-trained to filter out disingenuous advertisements, scams, and false claims. Thanks to embracing internet savvy and global thinking, younger voters are not content with simply believing what they are handed by a single source, even (or especially) if it's a household name like CNN. Not because everything on the mainstream media is wrong, but because planned or unplanned, conscious or unconscious, any one particular voice, paper, or TV channel will have their own bias, dictated stances and information gaps. Intelligence is setting aside blind trust and snap judgements, instead gathering all available information from all available sources, weighing each piece of data carefully and accepting as truth only that which can be overwhelmingly verified and substantiated. That's basically the basis to scientific research, and will undeniably result in a more informed, well-rounded, accurate worldview than the money-centric TV viewing alone could ever offer.

So now we come to the biggest lie, and the crux of the issue with our misleading headline. This election isn't about Democrats vs Republicans. Or even Progressives vs Conservatives. This election is about what's factually responsible, sustainable, and fair for all vs all the spin and power the moneyed establishment can buy. The youth joined the Democratic party en masse to support the obviously most qualified candidate, Bernie Sanders. Primarily because he is addressing both real day-to-day issues and broader governmental ones with detailed, peer-reviewed plans posted online and explained in plain english at each rally. He has a provable uncanny record of integrity, foresight, wisdom, and a lifelong history of genuinely caring about people more than money, power, or corporate interest. He's the only candidate not trying to distract or attack, instead choosing to educate and empower. There's over three decades of informative documentation, video, and legislation of his to review and impartially judge online. As an old school ethical civil servant, his consistency and compassion are a breath of fresh air to a populace more and more treated like a disposable commodity. His selfless passion and humility are giving hope to so many who are tired of the juvenile poll-chasing immoral egocentric establishment politicians. To support him is simply to support ourselves- a no-brainer. It's a movement not just about a man, but a powerful and overdue universal message- Not Me, Us.

But when it comes to the establishment, the truth is always up for editing. Hillary and the media have been claiming that the young voters are "ignorant", "uninformed", and "misled". When that narrative airs on television, thousands of dedicated CNN viewers nod, thinking themselves so much more superior in their carefully manipulated diet of hearsay, while having done no due diligence of their own other than comparing it to their existing bias and opinions. Informational and generational divides have played a huge role in this election so far, with 70%+ of the informed youth voting for Bernie, while Hillary's SuperPAC was hedging bets by sending surrogate forms to "likely" older TV-watching Democrat voters. While Bernie continuously gets a fractional percentage of the air time and coverage other candidates get, and nearly always with a negative spin, Hillary and Trump (according to current polls, the two most-hated candidates in decades) solidly dominate the airwaves. While Hillary now has more protesters than supporters showing up to rallies, big media still talks about how Bernie- who pulls in tens of thousands to repeatedly pack stadiums, and has impressive likability and trustworthy polling even among Republicans- should drop out of the race to support Hillary. Does that sound like the type of narrative you want to buy into, and swallow? Does that sound more likely to accurately inform and educate about reality, or to school and use you as another ignorant Orwellian propaganda dupe to adjust it for someone else's benefit?

"Will some Democrats refuse to rally behind their nominee?" If you turn off the idiot box, the answer is obvious. We're Americans, not Democrats. We registered to vote for a candidate, the only trustworthy candidate that represents us and our interests, period. That puts us under no cultist obligation to toss our intellect and ethics aside to voluntarily become part of the existing problem. We will not be continuing the same pattern of willfully ignorant apathy and deluded enabling those before us have done. The Democratic party and its chosen "front-runner" candidate have exhibited nearly every trait that is wrong with our country in the past twelve months; why on earth would we owe it allegiance? Having superdelegates is bad enough, but changing the rules to lure them with power and money- how is that fair or democratic? Pushing a lifelong corporate-serving power-obsessed dishonest political chameleon warhawk who has the backing of big banks, Wall Street, and even private prisons- why would we ever support such an individual? And then having the gall to call us "delusional" for not believing her newly (if reluctantly) adopted watered-down version of Bernie's winning talking points, and her vague pledges to somehow control her own sponsors? No, thank you. Young doesn't mean born yesterday. We will continue to rally behind our nominee, but keep the superficial, meaningless party labels out of it- our nominee, the people's nominee, is Bernie Sanders. And all the well-founded, responsible, essential reasons we're voting for him is why we will never, ever support Hillary or Trump.

This is our political revolution. We The People will no longer be held hostage by those undeserving of their abused power. We The People will no longer be guilted, manipulated, or coerced into voting against our best interests. The status quo is no longer acceptable. We have surrendered to it too many times under the false narratives of "compromise" and "inevitability". The legacy of our once great nation, of our cherished history, and of being proud American citizens is to stand up for what is right, even it means standing alone. Bernie Sanders has embodied this by spending decades fighting for us, never giving up even when it meant giving impassioned congressional speeches to empty assembly rooms, or voting against wars knowing the unjust majority was against him. Unknown and unappreciated by the majority of us for most of his life, he has nevertheless consistently been on the right side of history, choosing to live a life of respectfully helping, informing, and fighting inside a system mired with selfish corruption. So this time, finally, he will not find himself standing alone. It's our turn to do the right thing. This time it's us that refuse to yield. We will not fall in line, we will not acquiesce. We will march. We will protest. We will follow his example to never stop speaking truth to power and fighting for an ethical government of transparency and accountability that works for everyone, because that's what our citizenry, nation, and world desperately needs and deserves right now. Given our current candidate options, yes, that makes us firmly #BernieOrBust. No matter how you spin or condemn it, that's something we will remain with pride in solidarity and conviction.

We The People who represent the repressed unified spirit of our falsely divided "melting pot" nation actively choose to be on the right side of history and humanity, even if our current "representatives" refuse to. Like Bernie, we are not for sale. After all, smarmy sell-out establishment politicians are replaceable; our principles, integrity, and futures are not.

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